Florida Squads Snap TCU’s Winning Streak

FORT WORTH, Tex, January 17. The Horned Frog men's swimming team faced its first loss of the season as the No. 5 Florida Gators snapped the otherwise undefeated season. With half of the Florida team preparing for the Dallas Morning News Classic later on in the evening, senior Scott Schultz (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) and junior Zach Wilcox (Yarrow Point, Wash.) led the No. 5 Florida men’s swimming and diving team to a 129.5-113.5 victory against TCU Saturday at the University Rec Center.

The Gators (7-1) won eight of the 11 individual events and eight of 13 overall, highlighted by Schultz and Wilcox, who each won two apiece against the Horned Frogs . Wilcox also set a career high on the three-meter with a zone qualifying score of 379.50.

After dropping the 200-yard medley relay to open the meet, Florida won the first three individual events. The Gators went 1-2-3 in the 1,000-yard freestyle with sophomore Michael Berger (Frankfurt, Germany) taking first with a time of 9:29.89, junior Scott Kaufmann (Sparks, Nev.) second with a mark of 9:31.11 and junior Steve Friedlander (Coral Springs, Fla.) third with a time of 9:34.69.

Schultz followed up with his first win of the meet in the 200-yard freestyle as he won by nearly a full second with a time of 1:41.67. Sophomore Nick Borreca (Honolulu, Hawaii) then touched the wall first in the 50-yard freestyle (21.48).

Wilcox then added his first season best score of the day on the one-meter where he won by nearly 60 points with a zone qualifying score of 348.15.

Schultz picked up his second win in the 100-yard freestyle with a mark of 46.66. Right behind in second was Borreca with a time of 47.15.

Junior Jan Wolfgarten (Frankfurt, Germany) led the Gators to another 1-2-3 finish in the 500-yard freestyle by placing first with a time of 4:35.42. Kaufmann added his second runner-up finish of the day (4:38.70), while Berger came in third (4:41.16).

Senior Ansel Tjin-A-Tam (Paramaribo, Suriname) followed with a win in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:06.64) to close out the individual events.

"We lost to the fifth ranked team in the nation today," TCU Coach Richard Sybesma said. "But I think we really raced them and weren't afraid of them. We gave them a run for their money. I feel that, if everything went our way, we could have upset them."

The Frogs grabbed the event with the 200 medley relay team of Craig Chapman, Aran Bean, Aaron McLachlan, and David Tietze finishing just before Florida's A-team in 1:33.91, a season-best by nearly two seconds.

Bean took home another win for the Frogs, swimming the 200 IM in 1:55.68, McLachlan snatched the 200 butterfly in 1:52.36, and Chapman swam the 200 backstroke to a 1:51.08 time. In the end, however, Florida came out on top with a 129 score to TCU's 113.5

The women coasted to their second victory in two days, winning six of eight fully-scored events. With many of the Frog usual suspects like Keleigh Wentworth, Karen Sandifer, Erin Irons, and Jennifer Antisdale taking first place, they managed to do so in different events than normal. The scores came in TCU 126, NMSU 103.

"We were able to adjust the line-up and compete well against New Mexico State University," Coach Sybesma said.